Historically speaking, the winner of Game 5 in best-of-seven series that are tied 2-2 has gone on to win the matchup 82% of the time. Tuesday night's Spurs-Thunder match is a biggie. And if OKC is going to protect home court, where the Thunder have lost just one game in these playoffs, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is probably going to have to validate his MVP stripes.
It has not been a great series for SGA. He's averaging fewer than 25 points per game, down from 31 in the regular season, and more concerning is his 39% shooting percentage, which includes a 26% 3-point clip. He was held to 19 points in OKC's Game 4 loss.
The Spurs changed up their defensive strategy in Game 4. Instead of double-teaming him all over the court, they allowed their guys to cover him more straight up. It worked because the shooters who were ignored through the first three games were no longer wide open, and the production fell way off.
Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace, Jaylin Williams and Jared McCain combined for 68 points and 12 3-pointers in Game 3. They scored just 12 points on two 3-pointers in Game 4. Caruso, who hit 14 3s at a 61% clip through the first three games, didn't score a single point.
The rub of covering the back-to-back MVP with a single defender is that he's supposed to kill that coverage. But again, that didn't happen. That means you can bet the Spurs are going to play him the same way in Game 5.
Ajay Mitchell has already been ruled out for Game 5, and Jalen Williams is questionable. Mitchell and Williams are OKC's only true one-on-one scorers outside of SGA, which provides a viable third option for the half-court offense if the shooters aren't shooting and Gilgeous-Alexander isn't dominating.
If Williams can't go, Gilgeous-Alexander really has to play huge. Even if Williams can, how much can you rely on someone who has been banged up for most of the season against this kind of San Antonio defense?
It's time for SGA to be the MVP. He's the reason all those shooters mentioned above, none of whom are even remotely capable of creating postseason offense for themselves, have produced at such an outlier rate. That's what MVPs do. They draw all the attention.
Stephen Curry got absolutely robbed of Finals MVP in 2015 by a bunch of voters who apparently don't understand this dynamic and just decided that Andre Iguodala was a more important player in that series. It was all created by Curry, who was still the leading scorer on the team by a wide margin.
This is not an indictment in any way on SGA's MVP status. It's just to say the Spurs have flipped the equation by the way they defended him in Game 4, and he has to flip it back.
The only way San Antonio is even going to consider going back to trapping him with multiple defenders and opening back up all of OKC's shooters is if SGA punishes their single coverage to a meaningful enough degree that they don't have a choice. Until then, why would they go back to leaving Caruso and company open?
OKC has proved it can beat that formula. Now it's on SGA to prove that he, and by extension the Thunder, can beat the new one. And it won't be easy. San Antonio has elite perimeter defenders who are being extremely physical with Gilgeous-Alexander.